


Is It Too Late To Remind You How We Were

by Marvels



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5x04, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvels/pseuds/Marvels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode 5x04 continuation. If you got hurt, I'd be devastated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is It Too Late To Remind You How We Were

There were a lot of reasons that Stiles loved Lydia Martin.

She had this light, floral perfume that she wore every day, and over the course of their time as friends in high school, it had developed its own allure. When she would spend an evening studying sprawled across his bed, the scent would linger long after she had gone. Stiles had grown to feel that her scent was more necessary to a good night’s sleep than the bed itself. The smell was tinged with the scent of copper and viscera and why is there so much blood-

_It can’t be her. She can’t be hurt._

The color of her hair was almost the exact same color as his childhood dog, Murphy, an Irish Setter, who had died of age when Stiles was six. Murphy used to be an even deeper red, but as he got older, his fur had lightened to this delicate shade of golden, strawberry blonde. Stiles could remember the soft, grumpy sigh that Murphy would make when he used to cuddle up to the old dog. But that memory was old, and memories of Lydia were new, and all he could see when he thought of that color was curls and waves of tawny auburn hair, flowing and tangling out from her as she skated, walked, danced, cried-

_No. It’s not her. She is a scream, not a cry. She is a bang, not a whimper._

She never used to smile that much, he realized, but now he couldn’t imagine not knowing her smile. She had never been happy with Jackson, he realized that much very quickly, and Aiden was just there to numb the loss. He had been her way of self-medicating. Stiles wondered if she ever really smiled at them, and he doubted it. He knew he’d seen that smile, hidden behind every indulgent smirk she had shot at her peers, her teachers, her parents. Her smile was wide and bright, tears running down her face as she smiled at him and-

_It’s her. It can’t be her. Why is she smiling? There’s blood coating the floor and it all belongs to her, oh god, it all belonged to her._

He felt his pulse quicken and his ears deafen and his vision narrow. And she’d been there before. Administering the sweetest of medication to his lips with her own, a touch so warm and tender he could have sworn she’d loved him back. He had pulled away with all the clarity and oxygen in the world swimming together in his mind and he could breathe, but god, her eyes were still closed, her hands still brushing his jaw and his neck. Her lips were still parted as if she wasn’t convinced it could be over yet, not yet. Then her hands had dropped, and her eyes slowly opened and there was a flush in her cheeks, her pupils wide and wanting. His name was hardly a whisper on her lips but he could see it there, here her saying _I’m fine, I’m fine, Stiles_ -

_How is she still thinking about me? Stop thinking of me, let me help you, Lydia, I’ll help you, I swear, the second I can move from this spot, I’m yours._

Scott had always known, of course, Scott knew everything there was to know about Stiles and how he swore he loved her. He wondered if Scott had ever doubted whether or not he really loved her. He didn’t think Scott had the ability to doubt him, and he couldn’t help but feel guilty when he doubted Scott in turn. Scott asking him to _come on, come on, we have to go find Tracey-_

_How am I supposed to move for someone else when I can’t even move for her?_

She told him to go and he went. She promised she was okay, with that messed up kid squeezing the life out of her with the tourniquet. Or maybe he was forcing the life to stay there. It wouldn’t be the first time Stiles would be forced to walk away from her when she bled. God, the hardest things in life like to come round again, don’t they? They did for him.

So he slowly moved his leaden feet towards Scott and away from Lydia and it felt like he was fighting the kanima venom all over again but this paralysis was too mental for that, his body moved eventually, but his mind was like a video buffering, still caught on that single frozen frame of her coated in a sheen of sweat and the sticky blood that betrayed her and flowed out the second it had the chance. She was not smiling. Her hair was dark and heavy with sweat and blood. She did not smell like lavender. It was not adding up.

_Why was she still this shining brilliance in his mind? Why had he felt his heart stop when he thought hers might fail?_

_Because you love every piece of her, Stilinski. And even without her beauty and her smile, she is worth more to you than the rest of the world combined._

* * *

He left for the hospital before Scott or Malia. Kira and Theo were waiting there, both still disconcertingly bloody. Theo’s belt was gone, Stiles assumed, for good. Neither of them offered him words of comfort, and he was grateful. Consolation would mean that they’d all have to admit that he was the closest with her and she was the closest with him, despite Malia. It would have meant they were scared for her life. Stiles didn’t want to see that. So their silence was merciful in a way.

Malia and Scott and Liam showed up shortly after he did, and they all rose to crowd around Melissa McCall as she wheeled around the corner to find them. Stiles approached her, his face slack with grief and fear and she just told him _it could have been worse._

 _Good thinking on that tourniquet, Theo, it probably saved her life_. God he wanted to kill Theo, but how could he now? Theo had saved them both. He’d saved the sanity of the pack, the sanity of his father. He couldn’t hate him anymore. He couldn’t trust him still, but how could he continue on with such conviction on this guilt case with him owing Theo his life, his sanity, and his capacity to love?

Melissa was talking still, asking if they knew anything that needed to be done to her, or could they _just stitch her back up?_ Stiles winced at the words. No one could offer anything helpful, so Mrs. McCall wheeled away. Scott had looked at him with concern throughout the whole exchange, he was fairly sure, but he couldn’t meet his eye. He couldn’t look at Malia either.

Malia forced him to go home instead of spending the night at the hospital. She said that _he wasn’t going to be able to help anyone if he was just sitting with his head in his hands in an uncomfortable chair_. He reluctantly agreed. And home they went. They worked on the board a while, and Stiles watched with mildly curious eyes as Malia erased the phrase Desert Wolf from the glass. Her priorities were with the pack. It was progress. He wondered silently how he had found himself in the position of Malia’s caretaker. He supposed he knew why: she was scared and alone and so beautiful. He wondered silently if beautiful was enough.

He realized that he’d found the answer to that question earlier that night

_It was pleasure, but it was not love._

* * *

Once Malia was gone, Stiles drove back to the hospital. How could he not? It was tradition. The first time he’d stayed there, waiting for her, he’d barely known her. He’d known she was beautiful, and so intelligent. He’d had a hunch that there was someone within her who could love him back. Until he’d started dating Malia, that hunch had remained.

It had been absent since Malia arrived. Since Allison died. Since Aiden died. It wasn’t hard to see the trauma that had passed through their lives. That sort of stuff ruined love stories all the time.

_Death doesn’t happen to you, it happens to those around you._

He wondered, morbidly, if she would be next on the long list of teenagers who died too young because they were too foolhardy, and too involved in this world that was itching to kill them.

He was turned away by a too-gentle Ms. McCall when he tried to go and see her. She told him that the ICU only allowed family visitors. He insisted he’d wait in the chairs just outside the unit. They hadn’t let him see her last time, and that never stopped him. As he was turning to retreat to the waiting area outside, Ms. McCall mentioned aloud that she was sure nothing could happen in the main area of the ICU while she went to go check on a burn unit patient a few doors down. When he turned back around, Ms. McCall was already walking away through the ICU corridors. On the desk she had just vacated sat a Visitor-ICU badge and a post-it note that read _Room 463: Be out by 2 am, shift changes._

Stiles strode forward into the unit, silent, praying. He’d be able to see her. Let her be alright. _God, let her be alright._

Ms. Martin wasn’t in the room, despite evidence that she had been there for hours before. Stiles assumed she’d been sent home too. Lydia would need her more once she woke up. Stiles wondered if Lydia would ask for him or text him or call. He used to be the first person she called when something went wrong. He tried to remember when that stopped.

She looked terrible. She looked beautiful. Tears that he didn’t realize he’d been holding dripped down his cheeks. It hurt to see her. When he gathered the strength to approach her, touching her hand hurt too. God, she was warm. He’d half expected the cold grip of death when he reached for her, but all he could feel in his hand was _life, and life, and life._ He let a choked cry of pure emotion rip through his throat, grinning and sobbing all at once.

Then Ms. McCall was there, standing behind his chair, hand on his shoulder, then bending down to wrap him in the hug he so needed. She whispered, _it’s okay, she’s okay Stiles, you’re okay_ to him in every iteration of those sentiments. And he cried with the strength of a year of repressed struggles and fear and grief and he echoed her words, _it’s okay, she’s okay, I’m okay._

Eventually the shudders running through his shoulders slowed and he calmed on the outside. Melissa reminded him of the time constraint and he realized that he was being sent away. She hadn’t even woken. All he’d done was weep next to her bed as if she could absolve him of everything he was feeling. He was allowed two more minutes alone with her before Melissa would force him out of the room and back home.

With the door shut behind Melissa, Stiles looked down to the token he’d brought along with him almost an hour previously: a small bouquet of daisies he’d scavenged out of his neighbor’s flower bed bound together in red yarn. It was a sign to her, the yarn. She would know it came from him, from the string kept by the board in his room. She would know he came for her.

She would know that she was not alone.

And maybe she was even clever enough to know that he was prepared to ensure she’d never be alone again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little oneshot to break up the consistent work on AtKH since this Monday's episode hit my little shipper trash heart right where it hurts. Hope you enjoyed it! Leave me a comment or message me on tumblr at [natashaalianov](http://natashaalianov.tumblr.com/).


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